I write about politics, nature + the environment. Some posts are serious, some not. These are my views, I don't do any promotional stuff and these views are not being expressed for anyone who employs me.

A local MP here in Dorset has welcomed the victory for Brexit in the local paper.

“Voters don’t want to be run or ruled by a growing undemocratic bureaucracy.” “They wanted to take control back.” “It’s simple – we wanted a free, independent democratic country..”

That MP is Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax. Educated at Harrow, he lives on the 7000 acre family estate at Charborough. Almost anyone who has driven to or through Dorset will have passed his home-park wall with the famous “stag gate” on the corner. The family fortune came from slaves and sugar.

“Thanks and congrats to all those who voted bravely against establishment to regain control of our country.”

Though not in the same league as Drax, this one’s personal wealth is reckoned at £1.5M, was educated at Radley College, is married to a Viscount’s niece, who also happens to be Viscount Matt Ridley “the rational optimist”‘s sister. Guessed who it is yet? Yes of course, it’s our favourite former Secretary of State against the Environment, Owen Paterson.

12 Responses to Brexit: The Establishment is under attack – from an unlikely quarter.

Of a piece with all the mendacious iconography of the Leave campaign. Consider Boris Johnson, pampered Old Newtonian, wearing a hard hat, at the wheel of a Labour-red London bus (London being, predictably, a Remain fortress) with that slogan that indicates (but carefully doesn’t quite say) that leaving Europe would make an extra £35M available for the NHS.

When, oh when, will the defenders of sanity and progress learn how to engage emotionally with those they need to convince?

Miles – I had not realised that the life of privelege enjoyed by Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax is gifted to him from those who profitted from human trafficking, slavery, servitude and forced labour. I understand now why Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax voted against ensuring Landlord’s provided accomodation fit for habitation: I assumed it was just him being a greedy landlord, but based on past behaviour his family evidently have no difficulty in subjagating anyone for profit.

I’ll have a dig through the Legacies of Slave ownership website, and find out how much “compensation” from the UK government his family were given in order to cease committing immoral, abusive and degrading acts.

I knew Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax HND MP was educated at Harrow (whose fees £33k per year). This significant financial investment led to him eventually gaining a HND at Agricultural College.

ah well spotted. I had picked up the £4293 compensation for the loss of his family’s “assets” – 189 people incarcerated for his families profit. The owner of the Drax Hall Estate (on St Annes) also received compensation – though they appear to be a successor owner – the family will surely have established that plantation, which in 1835 enforced 353 people to servitude. A Richard Grosvenor and an Eleanor Plunkett also received compensation for the “assets” lost.

The archive for those interested is here:http://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/
(One day, I intend to prepare a guide to the ill gotten gains of the National Trust!)

The campaign for compensation to those enslaved by the likes of Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax’s bloodline is ongoing. Nowadays, Charborough House would come under the aegis of the Proceeds of Crime Act, and be seized.

Whilst we are on the gentry’s immoral seizure of anything for financial benefit, the enclosures acts remain the largest acts of theft in our history, and we should be demanding reparations for that act of theft too.

Living on ½ an acre in west Herefordshire I’m not in the same league at this Grosvenor chap but the principle is the same and never a day goes by when I’m not racked by guilt for occupying lands violently stolen from the Welsh by my Saxon and Norman forebears. As a country we’ve yet to pay for all damage inflicted by the Crusades but while that’s all being tallied up the least we can do is submit ourselves to Sharia Law. Has anyone costed the reparations that should be paid for the genocide of our Neanderthal brothers and sisters? This isn’t just a historical matter – a very recent example of ruling class arrogance is Sir Charlie Burrell of Knepp Castle and his heartless removal of hard working tenant farmers from ‘his’ 3,500 acres just to create one enormous personal pleasure ground. I fully expect that under the direction of the UK commissar general Corbyn all that land at Knepp estate will be taken over and parceled out to the loyal supporters of the North Islington Socialist Worker Party.